


Waiting Room

by st_aurafina



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Bear is okay though, Just needs a few stitches and so on, M/M, animal injury
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-27
Updated: 2020-11-27
Packaged: 2021-03-10 00:27:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 555
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27735322
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/st_aurafina/pseuds/st_aurafina
Summary: John finds he is not very good at waiting when someone he loves has been hurt.
Relationships: Harold Finch/John Reese
Comments: 14
Kudos: 38
Collections: POI Advent 2020





	Waiting Room

**Author's Note:**

> More details on the animal injury at the end of the fic.

John doesn't realise till after the firefight that Bear has been hit. There's lots of blood on the ground after all, and Bear is just as vicious and focused as he always is on a mission. John finishes tying up the Russians, surveys the scene one more time, then whistles to Bear. 

Bear runs over immediately, but in a bunny-hop lope keeping one hind leg completely above the ground. He's still eager, ears pricked and ready for John's command, but a pool of red is forming disturbingly fast below the leg he has tucked up. Dismayed, John drops to his knees to investigate the injury. When he touches the area, Bear snarls and whips his head around to snap at John. 

" _Stihl!_ " John says automatically and like a good soldier Bear freezes though his lips stay drawn back, his teeth bared. 

It looks like Bear caught a bullet, passing through and out of the muscle of his hind leg. John tears a strip off a goon's t-shirt and binds the leg tightly. As the adrenaline wears off, Bear starts to tremble, so John wraps him in a warm jacket and carries him home. 

At the vet clinic, John paces while Harold remains determinedly focused on his phone. 

"He's going to be fine," John says for the fourth or fifth time. 

Harold looks up from his phone. "Yes, the doctor seemed quite optimistic." 

John looks to the door that leads to the surgery, which remains resolutely closed, then turns his back to it. 

"It was a clean shot," he says, to reassure Harold. Then, a few minutes later, "I don't know he was hit. He just kept fighting as if nothing was wrong." He runs both hands through his hair, bewildered. 

Before John can start pacing again, Harold takes him by the wrist and pulls him down to sit beside him, hooks his arm through John's and holds him still. "Bear will be fine," he says. "But working yourself into a lather helps nobody." 

John leans against Harold's side, watches over his shoulder as Harold fills in a crossword, barely pausing between reading the clue and typing in the answer. "I don't understand how you can be so calm about this when Bear is bleeding on the other side of that door." 

Between clues, Harold lifts John's hand to kiss the bandage that covers a number of lacerations. "I've had plenty of practice," he says, and goes back to his crossword. 

Later, John makes a hot water bottle, wraps it carefully in a towel, tucks it under Bear's chest on the sofa and gently tucks a blanket around him. Bear, still groggy from the anaesthetic, looks up at him from inside the huge plastic cone, eyes beseeching. 

"You gotta wear it, buddy." John checks the tightness of the cone for the tenth time, but it's perfectly comfortable. "If you take it easy now, you'll be back in the field faster." 

Beside him, Harold slips an arm through John's. "Is there a way I can capture this moment for the next time you get shot?" he says. 

"I've learned a lot from this, Harold. I'll be good." John turns his head to kiss him without taking his eyes off Bear, and catches the corner of Harold's ear. "As long as you don't make me wear the cone."

**Author's Note:**

> Clarification of animal harm:  
> \- Bear is shot in the leg while working a number  
> \- He needs treatment by a veterinary surgeon  
> \- Later he's wearing a cone and feeling sorry for himself  
> \- But is otherwise fine


End file.
